So you've probably been wondering what we've been up to the past few weeks since I haven't posted a blog in awhile. But basically we have been staying in Geneva and getting back into the swing of things.
I came down with a cold the week we got back into town so I really didn't do a lot except rest and go through several boxes of tissues. It was also Thanksgiving week, and we had originally talked about hosting a thanksgiving dinner for a few of our ex-pat friends here, but in the end, it was too much work for me to do while sick, so Travers and I made our own special Thanksgiving dinner, fondue and roast chicken. yummm. Thankfully, we were able to celebrate with real Thanksgiving food when we were visiting Suzy and her family in SLO before we came back to Geneva, so we weren't deprived of any of our Thanksgiving favorites.
Once I felt better, I started to get back into running and doing yoga at home. Its now mid to high 30's in the mornings, so I've been bundling up with several layers of clothes, gloves, and a headband that covers my ears. Its harder to breath when its this cold out, but I've been keeping at it. I also get to enjoy the views of the surrounding snow-capped mountains now on my runs, so it makes it worthwhile.
We also got our fireplace checked out in our apartment, and it has passed the test so we are all approved to start having little fires this winter. Now all we need is wood, a gate and a fire poker. You'd think this would be something you could easily find, but no such luck in Geneva. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure where'd you find a fireplace gate and poker and wood in the states, but at least you had duraflames or could easily google things.
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| Place de la Fusterie |
So as of December 1st, Geneva is now looking much prettier. They decorated the entire city with white christmas lights. Being in the center of town, we can see a lot of the displays easily just a few blocks from our house at most. This photo is of a church just around the corner from our apartment building. In this square, every day they have a market with fruits, veggies, cheeses etc..some days, and other days, locally made arts and crafts. They also put up a tent behind this church that has a lot of local traditional Christmas goods.
A block or two away is the Place du Molard, which they decorated with lots of lights and at one end put up this huge Christmas Tree as well. Its not as big as the one in Union Square in SF, but its definitely up there. And if you walk down Rue de Marché which is just outside our apartment building, the streetlights are all decorated in lights and you can see lights strung across the road as well. All these lights make the city feel so alive and festive.
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| Christmas Tree in Place du Molard |
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| Looking down Rue de Marché |
Because of all the festivities going on around the city, I could hardly wait to get our Christmas tree. Apparently the Swiss don't usually get their trees at the beginning of December. They typically wait until mid-December at the earliest, and I've read that some people wait to get it on Christmas Eve and decorate it as part of their holiday tradition. Well, I'm not Swiss. I'm American. And I need my tree now! So I went out and got one. There weren't too many places last week that were actually selling them, but I found one that was a 15 min tram ride away in Carouge. After 15-20 minutes of debating and sending photos of potential trees to Travers while he was at work, I chose our tree. Its about 4 feet tall, and what you would call stout. Its very bottom heavy and thin on top, but with some lights and ornaments, and a nice gold skirt at the bottom, it looks beautiful! Speaking of which, this just reminded me to go turn the lights on as its getting dark out now!
So the only thing missing so far this winter is snow. Last winter, Geneva had already gotten some snow by this time of year, but we were told that it was a strange year for weather, so we're hoping we'll get some later in December or January. In the meantime, to quench our desires for snow, we took a day trip to a town called Avoriaz. Its in France, just an hour or hour and a half drive from Geneva. We rented a car with three of our friends and drove on Saturday morning. There was an event going on that day where you could demo any board or skis you wanted. There were so many different brands and one of our friends ended up demo'ing 3 different types of skis that day.
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| I'm ready to ski! |
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| We made it down the slope! |
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| Avoriaz |
The snow wasn't perfect, but it was plentiful enough. We got on the mountain by about 11am and didn't stop until 2:30p for a quick bite to eat, then went right back out to get another couple hours in before it got too dark. We were all a bit rusty, but after the first few runs, we were all having a great time! Unfortunately, both me and my friend Michelle brought cameras with dead batteries, so we didn't really get any pictures. But we all had a great time and it was the perfect trip to get our first runs of the season in.
Our next ski trip is going to be to Chamonix, France on the 22nd of December. We're going with our friends Mike and Shelley and will ski for a couple days, hang out in Chamonix, and enjoy any pre-Christmas festivities there. We'll get back on Christmas Day so we can skype our families and open any Christmas presents we have here.
In the meantime, we head to Montreux on Saturday for their Christmas Market to buy some fun holiday decorations, drink some vin chaud, and watch all the holiday festivities. Hopefully my camera will be charged by then!
We started off with a little vin chaud (hot wine for all the non-french speakers). Its a traditional wintery drink here in Switzerland that at first I didn't quite like, but I've tried a few different kinds, and the one at the market was delicious. I'm not sure how you make it, but its essentially hot mulled wine.
We then walked the rows of shops and found a pretty hand-blown glass ornament that is hand-painted red with a snowy village picture on it. Its now hanging on our tree and will always remind us of our first Geneva Christmas. We also found a covered area that had still more shops and things, and we found Christmas stockings. They are extra long and have a couple tiny bells at the top that jingle when you move them. I'm so excited that Travers and I now have coordinating stockings. Now we just need to get a few stocking stuffers to put in them!
